Last
week’s federal court testimony in in the Bobby Ferguson bid rigging trial
implicated former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s friend Al White to Ferguson’s
allegedly corrupt construction business. According to Detroit Building
Authority Capital Projects Superintendent Robert J. Hill, White signed in to
one January construction meeting on the $12 million Garden View Estates
construction project as a project manager for Xcel Construction Services, the
winning bidder, and then signed an April subcontract on the same project as an
employee of Ferguson Enterprises. Ferguson has denied any connection between
Xcel and the company bearing his name.
Xcel
was paid $557,000 to act as construction manager for the Garden View project,
and then directed $9 million in demolition and other work to Ferguson
Enterprises. In his testimony Hill acknowledged that Xcel and Ferguson
Enterprises have the address on Wyoming Street. If convicted, Ferguson faces up
to 20 years in prison.
